Simms joins James Brown, Bill Cowher, Bart Scott and Boomer Esiason on the “NFL Today” set. He replaces Tony Gonzalez, who announced his departure last month.

Simms spent the last 19 seasons at CBS as the network’s top analyst, with the past 13 being alongside play-by-play veteran Jim Nantz.

“Listen, I didn’t make any comments for a lot of reasons and you want to sit there and think about it,” Simms told Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch. “Initially was my pride hurt? Absolutely. Of course it was. … So it took a little bit. Not long. I started thinking about it in a positive way and then I became excited about it.

“(CBS Sports chairman) Sean (McManus) had talked to me over the years about maybe going into the studio. I now get to follow the league like I want to. That was probably the most frustrating thing about my job. You do one or two games a week, you can’t really pay attention to the other teams like I wanted to do. When you do games, you are all-in on those games. On ‘Inside The NFL,’ I get to say things about stuff that I never get to say in a broadcast.”

Romo, 37, was announced as Nantz’s new partner after retiring from the Dallas Cowboys on April 4.